Memories Fade
by loool87
Summary: A new life in Alaska for Lauren and her mother turns out to be more eventful than anyone could have anticipated. But then that's the way things are when you involve yourself with a Cullen.
1. Destination Fairbanks

**Disclaimer :**** I don't own anything you recognise e.g.) I don't own Jasper, Edward etc. I do own Lauren (well...the friend she's based on does but shh) and Eden, they're mine.**

** Let me know what you think.**

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I never really had an opportunity to establish a relationship with anyone so, I never knew how fragile they were. True, I had seen girls in various states of near hysteria because a guy had supposedly 'broken their hearts' only to see that same girl locked in an embrace of furious passion with a different guy less than a week later but, I had never felt that hurt first hand.  
I suppose the main reason why I hadn't formed relationships was due to my mom's inability to remain in one for too long. As soon as a difficulty arose, no matter how trivial (once she broke up with a guy because he wore odd socks...), we would up and move ... not just move house or town, but we would move state (there was probably 3 I hadn't lived in) or country - we lived in England for a year and Italy for 6 months. Most recently, destination Alaska...I didn't really care, it was only me and her, it was just easier if I just went along with it without complaint.

Our new home, the landscape was pretty nice, plenty of trees, the house wasn't too bad either - big enough for me to be able to be on my own, but small enough to be unnoticeable in its location. It was situated out of town in a fairly dense part of the forest. My bedroom, in the attic, was painted white with cream and brown upholstery and furnishings. There was a large bay window with a seat which had a view over a lake and occasionally, I had the pleasure of witnessing an aurora display.  
New house, New Town, New Life....sorted....only one hurdle remained. New School. West Valley High. Used to it though I may be, the stares and whispers in the corridor that signal the arrival of the 'new kid' did make me uneasy.

I tried to be early to my first class so that I would have time to settle myself. I took out a notebook and began to doodle, this tended to calm me down. In a world of my own, I sketched my old house, some trees that were outside and a random swirly pattern.  
A whisper caught my attention. "I don't like the look of the new kid" I rolled my eyes....here we go ... "She looks like she should be from a horror movie."  
Well, that was a new one. I looked up to see who had said this and I noticed someone sitting next to me. My breath caught in my throat and all comments were forgotten. He was the most breathtaking person I had ever seen....Honey colored hair and a lean figure. My eyes traced him up and down, taking him in. I was scared of him, but could think of no logical explanation for it. Two golden eyes, to match his hair, met mine and all the fear disappeared and I had to look away from him. It pained me to do so...I wanted to lose myself in those eyes for eternity. He, on the other hand, continued staring. I tried to keep my mind on other things.  
The comment that the girl made echoed in my head....I thought about it. Dark Brown hair - so dark it might as well have been black - the most penetratingly blue eyes, like a clear summer sky and deathly pale skin...I hardly slept the previous night so I felt assumed that I had dark circles. On the whole, vampire didn't seem that unfair an conclusion to make from my appearance so perhaps the horror movie assumption was more justified that I had first thought. I had to laugh though...a rather stupid remark to bell rang. I looked up to ask the honey-blond who was to be my desk mate for this class how to get to my next but, he had gone. I hadn't notice him leave.

The next few weeks passed without incident. I went to my classes, none of which (to my dismay) was with the strange but beautiful guy I sat with in English. I had noticed that he did attract a lot of female attention which I understood. All the girls in class seemed to be in love with him, regardless of their boyfriends, and constantly badgered him whilst he was trying to work.  
I regretted my choice of seat.  
The attention they paid towards him began to be reflected onto me...he ignored them, he focused on his work....and stared at me periodically in classes.  
"Maybe she's part of the family...messed up as it is." I hadn't said a word to this guy ever and yet I'm a part of the family? Confusing to say the least. I was mulling this over when I decided to talk to him, at least ask his name.I opened my mouth but was cut off, "Hello" simple sentence I know, but it caught me off guard "You're Lauren Draven are you not?" he continued, I nodded. "Sorry I haven't spoken, I'm not myself around....new people" his voice was calming, and had a warm tone to it....I felt it envelope me.  
"I know the feeling, not a people person either" was all I could manage to say, it earned me a smile...I almost melted. What was happening to me? I never acted like this. I looked away so he wouldn't notice me blush. "Jasper" he said, "Jasper Hale." As soon as I processed this as a name I realized I finally knew who he was...I repeated his name in my head. 'Jasper'. Unusual name. I liked it. Jasper asked me to work with him on our English project, undoubtedly to stop the girls asking him every five seconds to work with them. I felt proud none the less. We were given the theme 'fear and suffering' by the teacher and had to think of a book and relay to the class how the author of the book portrays this theme. My initial response to the theme was "Oh how pleasant" I smiled to myself as I said this. "What book do you think we should use?" He asked me, I mentally processed my bookshelves at home before answering.  
"What about Dracula?" I suggested.  
"I'd prefer not to do Dracula" he said sharply, I was shocked. He just looked away and muttered "Frankenstein" I nodded and wrote it next to our names on the form in silence.

When the bell rang, signalling luch, I was stunned, for the second time that day, to see that Jasper had remained behind. "Come to lunch with me." he said, like it was a command....I would have said yes to anything he asked me though. That thought worried me. "I know you got lost on your way yesterday....again" True, since being at the school, I had never found the cafeteria, everyone I followed just went to their lockers...either way, his words crushed the small amount of hop that I had been clinging to which told me that he wanted to be friends. I saw who he must have been aiming for the moment I entered the noisy, crowded room. A small table was occupied by what must have been four of the most stunning people in the world. Two girls, and two guys. I thanked him, he nodded curtly and I went to buy my food. I sat alone that luch hour. It didn't make sense, twice I looked over to their table and saw him looking back at me, his expression indifferent, unreadable. I saw a small girl with untidy, short black hair whispering to Jasper, her brow furrowed. Every now and then she too would glance at me, her expression was more a mixture of both concern and of unfathomable pity.

That night at home I lay in my bed and tried to understand what was going on. I realized that when he was around me, Jasper always seemed defensive, his posture rigid and his lips pressed so tightly together I had to wonder whether he was even breathing some of the time. So maybe I had upset him in some way? No, that couldn't be it.  
I finally decided, before falling asleep, that my constant moving from place to place was detrimental to my health, I was developing paranoia.

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	2. Fear and Suffering

**Disclaimer: do not own, nor do I pretend to own anything you recognise in this. I do own Lauren and Eden and the plot. **

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Whenever I saw him, I became nervous and didn't know what to do. I only ever felt confident enough to talk to him if he spoke first.  
This happened very rarely and only in English. It was as if I didn't exist outside of that room. In the next English class, Jasper asked again what we were going to do about our project. I told him that I thought a computer presentation would be different and might fetch us a good grade because not many people would do it. He agreed, surprisingly.  
"Lauren?" he called after me in the corridor after class. I stopped and turned to him, ignoring the scowls from the other girls and also trying to suppress the hopeful bubble which was trying to inflate inside me. I could almost hear my heartbeat as its rate increased, "I'm going to be away for a few days, so I wrote some notes down for you, our project will be due soon after I get back and it's not fair on you if you do all the work" his tone didn't give any idication that fairness mattered to him in the slightest. I blushed deeply and turned my face to the floor, annoyed with myself for my impossible thoughts, my heart now beating slower than usual but harder, thudding dejectedly against my ribcage, I could feel its rhythm in my throat. "uhhh, yeah, thanks...sounds, fair" I said, trying not to sound too disappointed that I would be working alone...He frowned slightly at my reaction..."I'll see you later then" he lightly touched my shoulder, and then he was gone.

Oh my lord. What was I doing?  
I was always emotionally, as well as physically drained on a Friday...I needed to sleep. Yeah, that was why this insignificant guy....Jasper....that was no different to any other was having this affect on me. I walked out of school that afternoon, head held high, I was not going to let his strange behavior affect me...  
But his behavior wasn't strange was it? I only said he was acting strangely because that's what I wanted to believe, I wanted to think that he would act differently towards me than any other guy I had ever met, but he didn't - I wasn't special to him, and he wasn't anything out of the ordinary...

On Saturday morning I pulled 'Frankenstein' out of my bag, the plan was to research for our project but I just sat and thought about Jasper.  
His handwriting was very neat, almost cursive, like you see on those romantic letters of the 1800's. My writing was quite loopy and neat...I also noticed that some of the points he made mirrored mine exactly...so we thought in a similar way about fear and suffering? Ok, I admit I was scraping the bottom of the barrel when it came to looking for similarities but, in my moment of desperation that was all I could manage.  
I had drawn up a rough version of each slide of the presentation but that was the extent of my work for the weekend...what was happening to the serious, studious girl that I was when I arrived here?

In school on Monday, I found out that he, Jasper, had been adopted by Carlisle and Esme Cullen when he was 16 along with his twin Rosalie, Esme was their Aunt. I had also made a friend, the source of this information, Eden Leste (whose surname, she said, meant East...so you wrote her last name 'East of Eden', she told me with an embarrassed smile on her pretty features, her father was from Galicia in Spain, and was a fan of Steinbeck it seemed). She told me everything she knew of the Cullens during lunch after I told her I was working with Jasper for our English project.  
I had no classes with Eden, but she promised she would sit with me at lunch and help me out with anything she could, I was instantly grateful that the one friend I had made so far seemed to be the nicest girl in the school. . .and normal.

At home that night I pushed myself to do as much work on the presentation as I could before I went completely insane and stopped working all together. Once I felt that I had done a substantial amount, I made my way downstairs to start on dinner. Moussaka seemed to be the only thing that I could make with the limited (and yet widely ranged) supply of food which was contained within the kitchen.  
When I had finished, without any disasters luckily, I went to my room and retreated into my childhood once more by listening to America's song "Man's Road". This song never failed to relax me,

**"I'm hungry, weary, but I cannot lay me down  
The rain comes, dreary, but there's no shelter I have found  
It will be a long time till I find my abode" **

how well those lyrics seemed to fit my current predicament I smiled ruefully, yes, I did wish that I could at least find some security in one thing in my life....as it stood, I couldn't even say I had shelter in my relationship with my mother....even that would make the transient homes seem somewhat more bearable. I sighed and turned off the music, just as my Mother called up the stairs to me, I realized just then that the dinner was still in the oven, I half shouted a greeting as I rushed to the kitchen and pulled the almost burned moussaka from the oven....ok so almost without disaster.  
"Honestly Lauren," My mother said, "I don't know what you've done with yourself since we moved here....but you've changed..."

I didn't know either....I was swiftly becoming a different person, and for no good reason.

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**Hope you liked it. R+R?**


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